Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax
A targeted wealth tax on real estate applied only to individuals whose total property value exceeds a high legal threshold.
Definition The Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax (known in Korea as Jongbuse) is a national tax levied on individuals whose combined government-appraised property value across the country exceeds statutory thresholds. It was established to curb real estate speculation, stabilize housing prices, and promote balanced regional development by redistributing the collected revenue to local municipal governments.
Why Get Another Tax Bill After Paying Property Tax?
Anyone who owns a home or land in South Korea pays a local property tax to their municipal district or city hall every summer. It is a standard holding tax paid on each piece of real estate where it is physically located. However, owners of high-value homes or multiple properties receive a second tax bill from the National Tax Service in early winter.
This second bill is the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax. While standard property tax is a municipal baseline tax levied on every property owner individually per property, the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax is a progressive national tax levied only on high-net-worth individuals whose total property holdings exceed a set threshold.
It works by tossing the value of all houses and land owned by an individual nationwide into a single basket. If you own an apartment in Seoul and another in Busan, the government aggregates both appraised values. Only when that grand total exceeds the legal deduction limit are you taxed on the excess amount.
How Do Official Appraised Values and Multi-Home Rules Work?
The Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax is not based on actual market transaction prices, but rather on the official published price announced annually by the government. Because this is an administrative baseline used strictly for taxation, it is typically set lower than current open-market prices.
The threshold for taxation depends heavily on how many homes you own. A single-household single-home owner is only taxed on the portion of the combined published price exceeding 1.2 billion KRW (approx. $900,000). On the other hand, multi-home owners become subject to the tax as soon as their combined published price crosses 900 million KRW.
Furthermore, exceeding the threshold does not mean the entire excess is immediately taxed at face value. The taxable base is first multiplied by a statutory market ratio known as the fair market value ratio. Then, steep progressive tax rates that rise sharply as total real estate wealth grows are applied to determine the final tax amount.
A Closer Look: Avoiding Double Taxation and Providing Relief
The tax is carefully engineered so that owners are not taxed twice on the same asset. After calculating the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax on the portion above the threshold, the property tax amount already paid on that same excess in the summer is deducted. This crucial credit prevents double taxation on the identical piece of real estate.
Additionally, several relief provisions protect people who simply live in their single home. If you have owned the home for 5 years or longer, or if you are a senior citizen aged 60 or above, you can receive tax credits of up to 80 percent. This prevents retirees with fixed incomes from being driven out of their primary homes by sudden tax spikes.
Ultimately, the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax is not designed to burden ordinary homeowners, but to serve as a fiscal policy tool that curbs speculative capital concentration in luxury real estate and fosters housing stability.
🤔 Common misconceptions
Every homeowner in South Korea must pay the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax.
It applies only to the small fraction of wealthy property owners whose nationwide combined published property values exceed the legal threshold (1.2 billion KRW for single-home owners, 900 million KRW for multi-home owners).
Paying property tax in summer and this tax in winter means you are being double-taxed on the same property.
The property tax already paid on the excess portion above the threshold is deducted when computing this tax, preventing double taxation.
🧺 Where you meet it
A progressive national tax levied on individuals whose nationwide combined government-appraised real estate value exceeds statutory thresholds.